Locus of control has been a major topic of study within psychology since the 1950s. Researchers have found that people with an internal locus of control tend to praise or blame themselves for success or failure, rather than assigning responsibility to things outside their influence. A student with a strong internal locus of control, for instance, will attribute good grades to hard work, rather than natural smarts. A salesman with an internal locus of control will blame a lost sale on his own lack of hustle, rather than bad fortune.
\n\u201cInternal locus of control has been linked with academic success, higher self-motivation and social maturity, lower incidences of stress and depression, and longer life span,\u201d a team of psychologists wrote in the journal Problems and Perspectives in Management in 2012. People with an internal locus of control tend to earn more money, have more friends, stay married longer, and report greater professional success and satisfaction.
\nIn contrast, having an external locus of control\u2014believing that your life is primarily influenced by events outside your control\u2014\u201cis correlated with higher levels of stress, often because an individual perceives the situation as beyond his or her coping abilities,\u201d the team of psychologists wrote.
\nStudies show that someone\u2019s locus of control can be influenced through training and feedback. One experiment conducted in 1998, for example, presented 128 fifth graders with a series of difficult puzzles. Afterward, each student was told they had scored very well. Half of them were also told, \u201cYou must have worked hard at these problems.\u201d Telling fifth graders they have worked hard has been shown to activate their internal locus of control, because hard work is something we decide to do. Complimenting students for hard work reinforces their belief that they have control over themselves and their surroundings.
\nThe other half of the students were also informed they had scored well, and then told, \u201cYou must be really smart at these problems.\u201d Complimenting students on their intelligence activates an external locus of control. Most fifth graders don\u2019t believe they can choose how smart they are. In general, young kids think that intelligence is an innate capacity, so telling young people they are smart reinforces their belief that success or failure is based on factors outside of their control.
\nThen all the students were invited to work on three more puzzles of varying difficulty.\u00a0 The students who had been praised for their intelligence\u2014who had been primed to think in terms of things they could not influence\u2014were much more likely to focus on the easier puzzles during the second round of play, even though they had been complimented for being smart. They were less motivated to push themselves. They later said the experiment wasn\u2019t much fun.
\nIn contrast, students who had been praised for their hard work\u2014who were encouraged to frame the experience in terms of self-determination\u2014went to the hard puzzles. They worked longer and scored better. They later said they had a great time.
\n\u201cInternal locus of control is a learned skill,\u201d Carol Dweck, the Stanford psychologist who helped conduct that study, told me. \u201cMost of us learn it early in life. But some people\u2019s sense of self-determination gets suppressed by how they grow up, or experiences they\u2019ve had, and they forget how much influence they can have on their own lives.
\n\u201cThat\u2019s when training is helpful, because if you put people in situations where they can practice feeling in control, where that internal locus of control is reawakened, then people can start building habits that make them feel like they\u2019re in charge of their own lives\u2014and the more they feel that way, the more they really are in control of themselves.\u201d
\n\u201cI hand out a number of compliments, and all of them are designed to be unexpected,\u201d said Sergeant Dennis Joy, a thoroughly intimidating Marine drill instructor. \u201cYou\u2019ll never get rewarded for doing what\u2019s easy for you. If you\u2019re an athlete, I\u2019ll never compliment you on a good run. Only the small guy gets congratulated for running fast. Only the shy guy gets recognized for stepping into a leadership role. We praise people for doing things that are hard. That\u2019s how they learn to believe they can do them.\u201d
\nThis is a great lesson for anyone in a leadership position.\u00a0 Are you teaching those you lead to use their internal or external locus of control?\u00a0 Can you leave and things get done as if you are there?\u00a0 This information helps us understand why the success of an organization can be traced to its leadership.\u00a0 Since motivation is a learned skill, you can improve your situation by applying this new knowledge.\u00a0 Simply review your personal motivation and that of your team, what are you teaching?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Locus of control has been a major topic of study within psychology since the 1950s. Researchers have found that people with an internal locus of control tend to praise or blame themselves for success or failure, rather than assigning responsibility to things outside their influence. A student with a strong internal locus of control, for …<\/p>\n